Developing a growth mindset in students

Braunstone Frith Primary School

Zainab Gangat, a recently qualified teacher at Braunstone Frith Primary School in the UK, has used IRIS Connect to develop a growth mindset in students. Here she explains how.

Why did you decide to develop a growth mindset in your students?

At Braunstone Frith, we believe failure isn’t a permanent state; if you get something wrong it doesn’t matter, you just need to keep working at it until you get it right and actually the more you fail the better it is for you because when you do get it, it’ll really stick with you.

How did you do it?

My students used to be really fussy and claim that they couldn’t do things. So, I introduced the idea of a growth mindset through grit, the perseverance and passion for long-term goals and used the phrase ‘keep on swimming’ from the film Finding Nemo to help them understand.

They now know that if they find something really difficult they’ve got to keep on swimming and ask themselves, how am I going to do this?

They’ve got three options to choose from:

1. They can ask the person next to them

2. They can have a go, get it wrong and then ask the teacher to guide them a little bit more

3. They can ask the teaching assistant who’s also in the classroom

What impact has it had?

Before working with IRIS Connect to develop grit and a growth mindset, I had two children who weren’t very confident learners. Over time they have got better and now they’re independent learners. They’ll just get on with the task at hand and quite often move on to the more challenging work. In terms of progress they’re making strides because I’ve been able to successfully embed that mindset in them.

How did IRIS Connect help you?

Through the regular use of IRIS Connect to film my lessons, I have been able to see which children haven’t quite got to grips with the concept of grit and don’t use a growth mindset yet. I then use the videos to work out what the barriers are to them developing it.

I also created a showreel demonstrating how well my children have developed a growth mindset to show my professional learning progress. I started off with a lesson right at the start of term where the idea was there but it wasn’t very clear what I was trying to do. Then in the videos towards the end, you can really see how the children have developed as a result of how I’ve developed, in terms of the language and questioning that I’ve used. I also interviewed two children who were using grit and could explain it really well.

I couldn’t have done any of this without IRIS Connect, it’s really helped me a lot.

What are your plans moving forward for this?

Obviously there’s a transition between my class going up to the next year, so I’d like to use IRIS Connect to show their new teacher what they are capable of and how they are using a growth mindset. From that she will know what she can expect from them and maybe use that or even show them the videos of them using it at the start of the year to remind them. I’m also planning on using it again with my class next year but this time jumping straight in with the techniques that have worked and refining them to meet the needs of the new children I’ll be working with.